


well, okay then

by Wintertree



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 07:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12812289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wintertree/pseuds/Wintertree
Summary: Varric stands, joints protesting loudly. He’s too old for this shit, this shit specifically being Brosca’s expensive and ludicrously deep chairs. “Okay, how about this,‘The dwarf runs out of the ruins to weep in the desert, uncontrollably.’Now get your shoes on, Hawke, we’re doing a ShakeShack run and we can workshop a better eulogy in the car.”





	well, okay then

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> hello friend i finished this at like 4:30am but varric finding love would NOT let me rest
> 
> edit: i am now awake during sunlit hours and cleaned up the grammar a bit!

_A fear demon leapt out of the ground below Varric. Out of the Fade for only a minute and the damn things were already swarming him. Sera was somewhere, jumping in and out of shadows. He went to reload Bianca, maybe let a spray burst and leap back to safety, but a green light ripped across the courtyard. With a horrible shriek, the demon collapsed._ All _the demons collapsed._

_The Inquisitor. He must have made it through._

_Varric sprinted back to the rift, thankfully closed. He saw the Inquisitor, standing beside Stroud, and looked around for..._

_And couldn't find him. Ice flowed through his veins, but he didn’t let it shake him. Not yet._

_“Where’s Hawke?” Stroud and the Inquisitor shared a look. He repeated himself, but Varric already knew._

_The Inquisitor said some pretty words, probably, but it sounded like a horde of flies, circling inside his ear._

_“Well,” Varric says. He shook his head and went to–_

“Wait seriously, that’s it?” Hawke squawks. Varric places the meat of his palm against Hawke’s mouth, but the big idiot just keeps talking, albeit muffled. “Your _best friend_ dies, heroically and _tragically_ , and I don’t get a big monologue?”

“Shush. The tragedy is how easily he accepts it.” Hawke narrows his eyes and licks Varric’s palm. Varric grimaces and wipes the hand on his friend’s sweater. He’s lucky Varric somehow finds that endearing. “Classy.”

Sera pushes out from the table. “If we’re taking a break, I’m taking a piss.”

“Go ahead. I’m still _dead_. It sucks.”

“Yeah, wonder how _that_ feels, asshole,” Carver says from where he’s stretched out on the sofa, one earbud in and dicking around on his phone. Sera flips him the bird out of sheer habit as she walks out of the living room to find one of Brosca’s _many_ bathrooms. He can see her hang a tight right, so she must be going to the small bath by the kitchen with floor to ceiling mirrored walls. Good pick. And a great perk of having rich friends.

Brosca puts down his dice and sighs wearily. “To be fair, I left it really ambiguous. We can go in the other room and roll for a bit, see if you actually survive.”

“No, it’s no fun if I’m not in the party,” Hawke whines.

“Be quiet!” Cass snaps. “You’re ruining the moment and you didn’t even want to join this campaign in the first place.”

“It’s my death and I’ll cry if I want to!”

Varric tunes out Hawke and Cassandra’s squabbling and picks at the remaining veggie tray. Damn it, someone ate all the red pepper strips. Hawke seems a bit manic today, but he also hasn't really hung out with Cass before, who raises Varric’s blood pressure on a calm day. Adaar tries to grab the last of the celery, but Hawke locks on the movement and turns on him next.

“And you sacrificed me for some random white dude with a hipster mustache? Where's the fucking solidarity?”

Adaar grins devilishly. “Listen if you’re not going to be playing for a bit, wanna get takeout? I’ll Venmo.”

“Fiend! Betrayer!” Adaar shrugs. “What about asking Carver? You’re just on your phone, you go.”

“Nah,” he says. Hawke chucks some baby carrots at his brother. They land on his chest with dull thumps, but Carver just crunches on it as he puts in the other earbud.

Varric stands, joints protesting loudly. He’s too old for this shit, this shit specifically being Brosca’s expensive and ludicrously deep chairs. “Okay, how about this, ‘ _The dwarf runs out of the ruins to weep in the desert, uncontrollably._ ’ Get your shoes on, Hawke, let's do a ShakeShack run and we'll workshop a better eulogy in the car.”

Hawke grumbles but gets his things. He spares a moment to have a hushed conversation with Carver, mostly spoken through annoyed looks and expressive brow wagging. Varric crosses to Brosca, wetly kissing him on the cheek before getting swatted away.

“Bye-bye, Brosca,” Varric says. He passes the large, tastefully nude portrait of Zev on the wall and salutes it. “Bye-bye Zevran. Bye-bye mansion.”

It’s muggy and hot outside, but the large trees offer some nice shade as Hawke and Varric wait for the automatic gate to slide open.

“I can’t wait for them to go on holiday again,” Hawke says, wistfully. “You know my dream is housesitting for a gay, rich, Beverly Hills couple.”

Varric snorts. “I thought your dream was getting adopted by one?”

He shrugs. “Ah, but that’s just the first tier. Once they see how tidy and charming I am, they’ll definitely want me as a kept boy.”

“No one could ever keep you, you wild stallion.” Varric pauses on the street. “Mine or yours?”

“Mine. But a $600 per month rent in Beverly Hills? Fuck, Varric, they can keep my first born.”

Varric bursts out a laugh. “You’re an idiot, Hawke, but I love you.”

“Eh, that tracks.” Hawke clasps Varric on the back and steers them to his shitty sedan. It’s cluttered with paper and discarded coupons, but smells nice. Classic Hawke. He’ll live out of a shoebox but break the bank on a nice scented candle, the big dope.

Varric hops in the passenger seat, pushing some old sweaters out of the way and checking out their designs. “Which lucky lady did you steal this from?”

Hawke furrows his brow, so Varric throws the _BLACK GIRL MAGIC_ sweater at his face. He pulls it off and grins.

“I bought this for Bethany’s birthday like three years ago but she claims it’s too itchy. I personally look very fetching in it, all tight shoulders and exposed wrists.” He tosses the sweater in the back and turns the key, car sputtering awake. “Now let’s boogie.”

Varric holds onto the dashboard for dear life as his friend peels off into the distance. He’s really getting too old for this shit. He's forty-mumble-something years old and the highlight of his week is a DnD game thrown together by an old college friend.

Guess that’s not completely the case. Hawke fiddles with the radio and Varric gets a chance to look at him for a bit, biting back a smile. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other. And as much as the bastard actively tries to break whatever campaign they’re running, any activity is just… _better_ with him around. Or was, but Hawke stopped coming to Brosca's DnD parties ages ago. Even Carver crops up more frequently. Actually, it's been a long minute since Varric's even been _alone_ with Hawke.

Varric kicks himself, but more specifically the unasked for pang in his chest. He was enjoying Hawke’s company, and now he went and soured it by worrying if they were drifting apart. It’s ridiculous; every year he's needier of Hawke’s attention. Varric looks down at Hawke’s arm, draped casually on the armrest, so close to his own, and refuses to acknowledge how desperate he’s even become of Hawke’s touch.

Hawke hums and focuses on the street ahead. “So, the eulogy.”

“Where I say how pretty and special you are?” Varric says, gratefully diving into the conversation.

“Yes.” Hawke clicks on the blinker and smoothly changes lanes. Varric relaxes minutely in his chair now that his friend’s distracted.

“Okay. You’re very pretty and special.”

“And?”

“And extremely humble.”

Hawke sighs dramatically. “Low hanging fruit, Varric, even for a man as short as you.”

Varric groans, dutifully playing along.

 

Waving others on ahead, Varric stares at the board for what feels like ages. He’s pretty convinced on getting a concrete, but dual and opposite feelings of desire and ultimate colon repulsion leave him hesitating.

Finally he just rubs his temples and turns to Hawke. “Alright big guy, pick your poison. You’re splitting one of these damn things with me.” Hawke spooks and quickly pockets his phone. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Hawke coughs. Now that Varric thinks about it, he spent an awkward amount of time staring at that thing after they parked the car. “Text from Carver. Apparently the gang’s breaking up for the evening.”

“Oh,” Varric says, just kind of standing there. Hawke drove him here, but if the night was over already…

“Wanna stay here?” Hawke playfully overacts a wink. “I can even treat you to a large shake.”

Varric groans. “Love to stay, but unless you’ve got milk pills on you, I’ve gotta pass on that for the safety of all involved.”

“Oh, well here.” Hawke pats himself down and whips out a little packet of Lactase out of thin air, tossing it to Varric.

“Are you serious? When did you become lactose intolerant?” Varric’s one hundred percent seen Hawke polish off an entire tub of Fage yogurt in one sitting.

"I'm not, but I thought we'd order pizza at Brosca's like usual, and you always used forget and complain." Hawke shrugs, sheepish, and brushes past him to place both their orders.

Varric feels like the Grinch, if the Grinch’s heart grew three times too big from being given little magic pills that let old bastard’s like him comfortably consume dairy. Varric has so many questions, namely, what the hell just happened, but he can read his friend’s body language well enough to know when he’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to talk about it.

He stares at the tiny packet, trying to figure out why it’s rocking him so much. Tiny, non-descript pills and a square foil package sounds like a regular Tuesday when he was in his twenties. Now? Varric spends most of his nights at home, trying not to double text his friends before falling asleep to _Ghost Whisperer_ reruns by 10pm. It's not that Hawke's trying to be  _romantic_ or anything, but bringing him this is definitely one of the weirdest and most thoughtful things someone's ever done for him.

Varric lets himself get guided by Hawke to a nearby table. The pang in his chest is back, and more confusing than ever.

Hawke even brings over two cups, presenting the whatever garish soda combination creation he made to Varric as if he was a sommelier. It takes fruity, but has a tangy kick of an aftertaste. Basically, it’s terrible. And yet he drinks the whole cup, laughingly stupidly at Hawke’s jokes as they wait for the buzzer to go off.

So, not actually a confusing pang. Just really fucking annoying and futile.

The buzzer finally screams, and when Hawke returns with their trays, somehow a moment of quiet falls over the conversation. Varric’s lost the thread so horribly he doesn’t even know where to start it up again. Hawke’s doing that thing where he pretends to be looking at something random in the distance, but he’s actually watching you like a hawke, no pun intended, out of the corner of his eye. It makes him feel itchy for some reason.

Varric clears his throat. “Thanks, uh, for swinging around earlier. You should come back next week. We can even whip you up a not-dead character sheet.”

Hawke shrugs. “Maybe. I kinda liked taking a break for a while.”

“Suit yourself.” Varric stares at his picked at dinner. “Don’t think you’ve met my friend Tiny yet, he joined about a month ago. I think you’d like him.”

“Can I, you know, fit him in my pocket and carry him around like my lizard?”

“Hawke, I think I can say with absolute certainty that I do _not_ know, and that is _not_ a normal thing to do with a lizard.” Lie. Varric’s definitely seen Hawke do that with Dog, his aptly named gecko. “Tiny’s the guy who walked in on day one, passed me a blank sheet, and asked for character that had a ‘big sword, big horns, and big dick.’”

Hawke chuckles. “Sounds like a visionary.”

Varric pushes around his concrete, already starting to melt. “So why did you come today, then. It’s been a while.”

“Ah, yeah. Carver made me.” Hawke starts ripping his napkin into tiny pieces. “Apparently I’ve been kind of an asshole lately and keep avoiding everyone.”

Varric sucks the air in through his teeth, realization striking him like a huge goddamn hammer. “Shit, Mal, I’m sorry.”

Hawke’s birthday’s in a month, which would officially make him a year older than his father was when he passed. The twins were young when it happened, but Hawke was older and he's up about it before, usually around his father’s Yartzeit. Varric’s seen the man cry a lot, twice during Amazon commercials, but he pulls away and becomes completely stone-faced when it comes to grief. And when it comes to the ugly knot of hurt surrounding his father’s death—well, there’s a reason Hawke prefers hearing his surname than ‘Malcolm’ all the time.

Hawke’s phone buzzes. He takes a quick look at the notification before pulling a face and clearing it, but not before Varric can see there are several texts from Carver.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Hawke says. He turns his phone on mute and moves on to destroying another napkin, building a little mountain from the little pieces. “I’m good. I’m good with where I’m at, but I’ve got these little, I don’t know, New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve been talking them over with my brother.”

Varric makes, what he hopes, are little noises of encouragement.

“First of all, I’m going to hang out with friends I don’t see enough. And I’m going to stop living like a man-child, maybe separate my whites and colors when I do laundry.”

“Please, Hawke, let’s keep this list realistic,” he interrupts. Hawke smirks, but the expression quickly wipes off his face.

“I’m also… Varric, do you– is there something here?” Varric freezes, heart suddenly kicking into overdrive. “When we were younger, I would say yes. Or I thought so. I don’t know. You had that long distance thing I could never figure out, and before I knew it, we were best friends for over a decade and it was a boat I didn’t want to rock.”

Usually when things like this happen in books, or on a show, if it’s overwhelming Varric can pause it. Instead, he’s stuck paralyzed in an overly lit fast food restaurant on a Sunday evening. The moment’s so surreal he half expects a cut-to-black act break to come out of nowhere, sparing him a moment.

Instead, Hawke just keeps on talking. “I don’t want to keep being some coward, I want it on the table. Us. I want an ‘us’ to be on the table. If you’re interested.” Hawke barks out a humorless laugh. “Because I’m obviously interested, if you haven’t picked up on that.”

“Well.” Varric swallows. He searches Hawke’s handsome face, tight behind a self-deprecating smile that reads more like a grimace, finally coming to terms that this is really happening. “Well shit, _yeah_ , of course I am.”

“Good. Glad we could be, like, mature about it,” Hawke says. His tone’s mocking, but the smile-grimace is gone, replaced by a full blown million megawatt grin and bright eyes.

“Shocking, especially for us. Definitely does not track.” Varric hides a breath of relief, falling comfortably back into the safety of their joking banter. He feels like a stupidly giddy teen. Hawke takes a bite of his burger, chomping it obnoxiously with an open mouth, but puts his other hand flat on the table. Varric takes the plunge, trying so fucking hard to seem casual as he places his hand on top of Hawke's. He immediately becomes self-conscious, realizing a moment too late that his fingers are still greasy. Hawke doesn’t seem to mind, threading their hands together.

“You know,” Hawke says, a wild look in his eyes, “this has been super stressful, I think I deserve to hear that overly complimentary eulogy you owe–”

Varric tugs him close and kisses him, careful not to let his grubby little paws stain Hawke’s shirt.

It’s nice. But it’s even nicer when they neck in Hawke’s tiny little sedan, and then later in Varric’s considerably larger bed.

**Author's Note:**

> that’s right, the reason the Warden isn’t in da2 or dai is because he’s the damn DM ;^) Why are these folk playing dnd with characters directly based off of themselves?? you may ask. Please Don’t Ask Me That will definitely be my answer. Also since I’m god, Hawke is black & jewish so jot that down!
> 
> a lot of this is based off of real conversations, situations, & house sitting parties I've experience since moving out west, so. I'm absolutely that emotional bitch who cries at that Amazon ad where the dad buys his son a superman costume. also varric was't paying attention but ShakeShack employees are RIDICULOUSLY chatty & friendly
> 
> anyways good vibes from across the internet & have a great day!!


End file.
